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Our brief Florida cold fronts are finally dropping the water temperatures forcing the redfish, snook, and trout to follow their winter time habits! Most of my time has been spent all over Tampa Bay fishing single and schools of large redfish on the shallow flats. With cooling temperatures the bay water is starting to clean up, the grass in many areas is dying off, and the fish are getting super shallow in the attempt to warm up and feed. Most fish we have been feeding flies to have been in the upper and over slot size category. And occasionally we get shots at large snook sunbathing in the shallows!

Here are some recent pictures of red fish and snook caught by myself, friends, and clients.

For most guides August and September are among the two slowest guiding months. What most anglers don’t realize is that although the weather can be hot and sticky in this time frame, the fishing can be absolutely AMAZING!

Tarpon- August and September are quickly becoming my favorite months to fish for the large and small tarpon. Most of the local fly and bait anglers forget about tarpon and focus on other species. I choose to target tarpon, especially the juvenile fish. Creeks, deepwater basins, and canal systems provide opportunities to find rolling baby tarpon when the tides and weather conditions allow. You may also find large tarpon (very few) along the beaches and inside the bays as we believe the resident tarpon move back in to feed and winter over. I have given a few anglers the opportunity to throw at large tarpon in inches of water. Sometimes tarpon push onto shallow flats and can be seen with their backs out of the water as they crawl across a flat looking to ambush mullet.

Bonita- August and September have also provided excellent bonita blitzing action. When the weather aligns (light winds and clean skies) the bonita can be found pouncing the fry bait that is found in schools right off the local beaches and near large passes.

Snook- Night snook fishing is always an option but I typically find the larger fish this time of year feeding on the lights at night. Even when snook season is open and the lights are being pounded by bait fishermen there are still opportunities especially late in the night or early in the morning for some solid snook on fly! Every now and then you may find a dock light with baby tarpon circling the light, these fish almost always take a well placed fly.

Redfish- When the tides are low I have been finding large schools of redfish that will readily feed on topwater flies. I only take anglers to find schooling redfish when the winds are light enough as it may be tough for a new angler to place flies into a school of fish with strong winds blowing across the wide open flats of Tampa and Sarasota bay

I have attached a video I filmed and edited using a very simple app on my iPhone. The footage shows what you may be missing if you are not booking a trip with me in September and August!

Well its the end of March and its now spring time here in Florida and that means the weather patterns are changing for the better! As the average temperatures rise into the 80’s so does the water temperature. This is wonderful news for guides and anglers alike not so much for the species we target as they seem to make many mistakes in taking well presented flies and lures.

The snook have been hiding out in the back country all winter, with the warmer water temperatures these fish are on the move, heading towards their summer spawning grounds. I have been finding them sunbathing in the afternoon and feeding voraciously at night around docks and bridge fenders. My go to fly for day time sightfishing has been either an olive Borski slider tied on a 1/0 gamakatsu hook or an EP baitfish pattern in olive and white. Once spotted present the fly delicately up current of the target and get its attention with small strips. After you have the snooks attention longer more abrupt strips have made the game fish come out of its shell to thrash the fly and don’t forget to stripset!

The redfish have also been found in the same areas as the snook and take the same fly patterns. I prefer to finger crawl a borksi slider or shrimp pattern on the bottom as these fish naturally feed off the bottom it makes it easier for that fish to trap your fly.

Migratory Tarpon should start making their way up the gulf coast towards Sarasota and Tampa Bay as the water temperatures approach 78-80 degrees in the gulf of mexico. You may also find juvenile tarpon in the evening and night hours around dock lights.

Tripletail are also making an appearance on the near by floating buoys and channel markers in the gulf and the bay.

It looks like we are in for another stellar spring and hopefully a strong tarpon season!

Well I guess spending everyday on the water is really starting to pay off, not just for my clients but also myself as an angler and competitor! The Salty Fly Tournament is known as one of the largest Saltwater Fly Fishing tournaments in the country. 2016’s competition was their biggest yet with about 110 teams competing for not just the wonderful prizes including cash and fly gear but the chance to hold the title for another year!

It started with a Saturday morning 4:45 am wake up call to make the 45 minute drive to the check in and another 45 minute race back to the skiff to begin the day. Once on the skiff my partner Capt. Jon Brett and I started working the deep grass flats for trout. As we drifted we both flung large heavy chartreuse clousers and work our way into a school of smaller trout. We caught about a dozen fish most being within 8-11 inches. Jon ended up catching a 16.75 inch trout and we made the decision to start looking for the redfish although the first light trout bite is always the most consistent we had enough light to start sight fishing.

Our previous day of scouting had paid off with several shots at redfish a couple of eats and one 29.5 inch red. We decided to try and repeat our game plan on tournament day. The conditions early on provided light winds and relatively no cloud cover. As we pushed the same areas we had the day before we noticed the tide was not conducive for what we wanted to do. In attempt to find fish it was important that we scrambled to plan B and relocated after a short boat ride to our next spot.

As I pushed Jon down a shoreline we started seeing life and big reds blowing out under the boat. I kept pushing the skiff when all of a sudden I spotted a redfish at our 3 o clock and alerted Jon to its presence. He could not see the fish so I guided him into the shot and the fish thrashed the small fly. So we were on the board with a 16.75 inch trout and now a 19 inch red, which up to this day had been the smallest redfish he and I had caught the whole winter.

The next couple of hours were filled with clouds, stronger winds, a lack of fish, and sheer panic.

Our big break came after the tide had rushed back onto the flat and we had run over a large redfish and decided to stop and start poling. Like clockwork our fish started marching down the shoreline feeding along the way. it was 1 pm and we had to both be back to the check in before 3pm in order to qualify for a chance to win. In order to make it to the check in on time we had to be off the water no later than 1:45. As it came down to the final minutes we spotted a redfish in prime position, Jon made a beautiful cast and the fish ate the fly and took off towards deep water. With 14 pound flourocarbon as the bite tippet we had to baby the fish back to the boat where I hopped in the water and bear hugged it to ensure we did not lose the fish when handling it.

After the measurement and release we continued our hunt. I looked 80 feet way up on the shoreline and spotted our next target. Jon couldn’t see it initially but I poled him towards it and he spotted the fish. After laying out the first cast which was too far ahead of the fish Jon delicately picked the line back up and shot the fly 5 feet closer to the fish. The fish picked up and made his way towards what he had noticed was crawling along the bottom.

“Bump it, he is on it!” I said as I watched with out moving a muscle in my body while holding the boat in position. (Jon starts pulling fly out of water to re cast) “Leave it he is going to eat” I yelled, and not more than 2 seconds later the fish came out of his shell to devour the fly! We let the fish run across the flat and started hooting and hollering!

In the last 10 minutes of fishing we landed a 27 inch and 28 inch redfish to ease our anxiety of what had been a slow day. It was now time to make the sprint back to the finish line. We pulled in to the weigh in with 30 minutes to spare and waited over an hour with knots in our stomachs to be announced the victors of the 2016 Salty Fly!

It was a tough day on the water for everyone in the tournament, we had somewhat lousy tides, cloud cover, and strong winds to deal with. I want to congratulate the other teams that also finished strong!

I cant believe it is already November and we still have yet to cool down! Regardless the triple tail have been abundant in the gulf of Mexico and inside Sarasota Bay. I have noticed that most of the fish are on the smaller side, my guess is that when the crab traps were first set out the meat fisherman in the area pillaged the traps for the larger keeper sized triple tail. Occasionally you will find a larger triple tail that may seem a bit more educated than your typical fish.

In order to find these fish you need a few key factors to come into play:

Sunshine and lots of it! (Clouds hinder visibility)

Crab Traps the triple tails main home although you may find these fish under any type of flotsam on the water.

Light winds because in rougher seas the fish wont float as high as we need to be able to sight and feed them flies.

I like to throw small shrimp patterns when targeting these fish. I prefer to pull the fly towards the crab trap as if the presentation is trying to seek shelter under the buoy. In my experience I have had the best luck with bring the fly right across the nose of the triple tail. Many times you may fed and hook the same fish a few times before landing it!

Along with triple tail I tend to keep an eye out for diving birds and churned up water from the feeding activity of mackerel and bonita. My typical charter when targeting these fish starts after day break and consists of constant running and gunning between checking the crab traps for trips to chasing bonita and mackerel. When done right it can be non stop fun that will challenge most any angler!

Sarasota Bay Triple Tail caught on a micro shrimp fly.

Tony with a solid tripletail found floating in the Gulf of Mexico while fishing the beaches of Sarasota

It was a cold day in Tampa Bay, our goal was to check some spots for cobia. We spent the morning running around looking for rays and cobia pushing around. After seeing two fish in the first two hours of fishing I decided to poke around on some of the shoals near by for potential redfish. It was another barren wasteland until I looked over my shoulder to see a giant wake heading directly towards the skiff. I had to do a double take at first and then spotted the first of atleast 100 jacks that were screaming down the shallow sandbar heading straight towards the boat. As soon as I spotted the first fish the group turned around and disappeared into the deep. We rigged a 9 weight rod with a topwater fly just in case the school decided to play red rover once more.

20 minutes later this happened:

Angler Steve Halstead was able to intercept a massive school of incoming jacks with a top water fly! He hooked up and was immediately sent into the backing!

Fishing with Captain Chris Hargiss

When a plan comes together it’s a surprise, a pleasure and all too often a rare occurrence. I can’t remember all the times I’ve heard stories of how fish are massed on a flat and eager to eat a fly.

When I hear this I actually cringe because, more often than not, the fish are nowhere to be found. When Captain Chris Hargiss announced to Steve Traves and me that we would be fishing a certain flat where the redfish had been holding for over a week, he did preface the remark with the fact that they had also often had a bad case of lockjaw. His answer to unlocking that puzzle was to go into stealth mode and get in the water to pursue the fish.

I was glad when I heard that we would be wade fishing because it’s an effective way to approach spooky fish, and it’s one of my favorite ways to pursue them. There’s something special about getting into the fish’s element.

Everything came together for us that day, including a good tide, favorable wind and gin clear water. We pulled up to the flat in Sarasota Bay, and found ourselves in a lush meadow of grass pock marked with white sand holes. The tide was low and incoming, and the holes were laid out from the shoreline in shallow water, mid-range depth and deep water. Hargiss predicted that the action would start out in the deeper water, and then we would find the fish moving up on the flat with the tide. Since we were fishing an incoming tide, he anchored in shallow water and started to explore the flat.

To test his theory, Hargiss struck out for the deepest holes while I waded the mid-range grass and Traves explored holes and oyster bars in the shallows. Experience over the years has shown me that reds can surprise you and be in some extremely shallow water, but on this day Hargiss was quick to prove his prediction. After he reached the outer edge of the flat, it was only minutes before I began to see him hunch to lower his profile and make casts into holes on the outer edges of the flats. Ten minutes later, he hooked and landed a nice trout, which he found among a group of large reds.

Although I was wading some very good looking flats and seeing a redfish now and again, I started wading for deeper water and a photograph when Hargiss, after making repeated casts, finally came up with a very nice redfish. The area he was fishing featured large expanses of sand allowing us to fish the area without getting in each other’s way. All of a sudden it became apparent why he wanted to wade because even with an extremely stealthy approach the fish were still very spooky. After making a number of casts at cruising fish I finally had one engulf my fly only to have the fly pull loose seconds later.

After a few more spooked fish and a couple of refusals, I tied on an old favorite bendback fly that mimicked a shrimp. On my second cast, I hooked up again, only to feel the line go slack after one short run. Unfortunately, I used that fly for another half hour getting two more takes before discovering that the hook had broken.

While all this was going on, Hargiss was making cast after cast to reluctant reds only to have a ladyfish steal the fly from an eager redfish. Moments later, he hooked a snook that went through his 20-pound leader, denying him a grand slam. While all this was going on, Traves was also finding reds coming inshore with the tide, and although he had shots, and a few refusals, he came up empty handed as I did. While many anglers would have considered the numbers at the end of the trip disappointing, we felt quite the opposite. While we would like to have landed a few reds, we also had lots of opportunities and learned something from every fish we spooked or missed the hook set on.

We were both impressed with Hargiss’ enthusiasm, his tackle and the obvious detail he paid to his boat and all his equipment. Depending on the season, he is available for tarpon, redfish, snook, kingfish, triple tail, false albacore and a host of other species.

Hargiss insists on having the best equipment when pursuing Florida’s challenging gamefish, and that’s what he gives his clients with his Hell’s Bay Professional 17.8, a skiff that runs dry, poles in the skinniest of water and is extremely quiet. Powered by a Yamaha 90hp outboard, he can get to the action quickly when needed with a top speed of over 40 mph. He can comfortably accommodate up to two anglers for any of his fishing excursions.

His rates for two anglers include full day trips (8 hours), half day trips, and night trips (4-6 hours). He charges extra for a third angler. Fly Quest Charters can also provide extra guide(s) for multiple anglers on a business outing. Hargiss can be booked through Traves shop, Anna Maria Island Outfitters, at 941-254-4996 or visit his website at www.flyquestcharters.com

This month has been an excellent month to fish during the day or night! Tarpon have slowly started to appear out of nowhere as they usually do. Night time has offered an assortment of fish in Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay, trout, redfish, snook, and tarpon are actively feeding at night on shrimp and glass minnows. The snook have pushed out of their wintertime haunts to occupy oyster bars and the surrounding flats. And the redfish are littered among the flats and are a good option for the evening low tides.